Not only did we not save $200 a year as Abbott promised, but energy prices have doubled since the Coalition scrapped the carbon tax; now, dropping subsidies for renewables is the latest thought bubble from the Nationals. John Passant reports.

"When this bill [to repeal the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme or CPRS] is passed, this Government estimates that power prices will go down by 9%, gas prices will go down by 7%, and that means that the average power bill will be $200 a year lower and the average gas bill will be $70 a year lower."

Snowy 2.0 is another example. It is sheer genius — pumping water uphill to let it fall and generate electricity. It is not "a magic panacea". It is a political response. It helps Malcolm Turnbull from having to turn to wind and solar power for a solution.

For the Turnbull Government, coal is the answer. Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told a meeting of the 1880s society, sorry, the National Party on Saturday, that "we have no problem in coal fire power".

Coal, the politicians trapped in the past tell us, will ensure reliable supplies of energy. The cities and towns that various hurricanes have hit in the Caribbean and South East America, the floods across Asia, the fires ravaging various States in the U.S., might all suggest that regular supply is being interrupted by forces far greater than the powers of Malcolm Turnbull or Donald Trump. Indeed, the regular supply that coal supposedly provides has fed those conflagrations.

A spectre is haunting the globe — the spectre of climate change. And what is the response?

Donald Trump pulled out of the inadequate Paris Agreement on climate change. That agreement kowtows to capital but even its minor, too little, too late commitments are anathema to some sections of society.

The Turnbull Government has done nothing about addressing climate change other than a tokenistic greenhouse gas reduction goal in the form of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) — a target they have emasculated.

‘The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.’

And so it is with energy policy in Australia.

One of those dead generations is coal fired power. The nightmare is climate change.

Can capitalism address climate change? The indications, so far, are not good. For a start, it may already be too late. The system may have lit the fuse of irreversible warming that will produce catastrophic consequences in the decades and centuries to come.

Even if it is not too late, the politicians and profiteers of the past hold power. Their "coal is king" irrationality makes some sense if you accept capitalism is rational. The current system has been built on fossil fuels. They are the lifeblood of capitalism and greenhouse gas emissions are its hidden soul.

In other words, capitalism is a structure of climate change. To fix that would require drastic economic, political and social change. Ultimately, to address climate change we have to address the system that produces it.

However, as Keynes said, "In the long run we are all dead". Climate change might be shortening that long run, at least societally, and for my children and grandchildren in reality. To me, at least – and to echo Rosa Luxemburg – the choice is becoming clearer and clearer — socialism or barbarism.

Climate change is an existential threat to the system as a whole, which explains why some sections of the rich and powerful are beginning, however inadequately, to factor it into their plans and even attempt to address it. The problem, of course, is that those attempts are limited by the overarching grundnorm of capitalist society — profit.

The kerfuffle over Liddell Power Station is a good example. Electricity generator and retailer, AGL, owns it. It will close it down by 2022. It is old and simply not economically viable in the medium to long term. It may be that the government will nationalise it to keep the coal powered fire station going beyond then.

I merely note that AGL is also a gas provider and with less coal-fired power there will be increased demand for electricity generated by gas — itself a fossil fuel that produces greenhouse gas emissions (albeit less than coal).

The "free market" is inadequate to address the challenge of climate change.

Government intervention, in the form of the CPRS, as part of addressing the inadequacies of the free market, only lasted about 18 months. Tony Abbott and the Coalition destroyed the CPRS. However, his government left in place the renewable energy target.

Mistakes made come back to bite us: What lies behind the power price increases in Australia? | John Quiggin http://t.co/4v8ozoG2pB

John Quiggin argued, in 2013, that the increase in prices has to do with, among other things, the privatisation of the state owned energy monopolies and their manic profit at all costs (including skimping on reliability expenditure and cutting staff). Re-nationalising these natural monopolies would be part of the solution. So, too, might be price controls on the retail price of electricity.

However, that does not address the energy mix of fossil fuels and renewable energy.

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Independent Australia is a progressive journal focusing on politics, democracy, the environment, Australian history and Australian identity. It contains news and opinion from Australia and around the world. [ read more ]